When the Arlington Country Day football team made the trip from Jacksonville to take on Chiefland last Friday, it ran into a team full of pent-up energy, hankering to face someone in a different jersey.

When Chiefland head football coach Aaron Richardson first met Jamarlon Bowers, affectionately known as Pooh among friends and classmates, he was just a locker room gadfly who didn’t seem like he had a bright future in football.

In addition to all of the damage and disruption wrought by Hurricane Hermine, last Friday’s high school football slate, including Chiefland’s season opener, was also dampened, as county games were cancelled.

Aaron Richardson’s Indians are now in the unusual position of playing their opener in the third week of the season – following a bye in the first week due to a cancellation over the summer – as they take the field at C. Doyle McCall Field at Wayne Pridgeon Stadium this Friday against Arlington Country Day of Jacksonville.